Identification of Lipid Biomarkers of Human Inflammatory Bowel Disease Using Imaging Mass Spectrometry

Inflammatory bowel diseases (IBD) such as ulcerative colitis (UC) and Crohn’s disease (CD) are chronic and relapsing inflammatory conditions of unknown etiology. Current treatments are not universally effective and can have severe adverse effects. Therefore, early detection and precise identification of the type of disease is important in order to apply the correct treatment. Here we present a mass spectrometry imaging (MSI) study of endoscopic biopsies obtained from the following patient cohorts, IBD, hereditary colorectal cancer (CRC-H) and control, at 10 micron (μm) spatial resolution. As lipid composition may vary between tissues, detecting several lipids could serve as specific biomarkers of each type of lesion.